Notable Quotables

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

- Tadashi Yanai

If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them—not that they are working for you.

- Sam Walton

Being first is more important to me [than earning money]. I have so much money. Whatever money is, it’s just a method of keeping score now. I mean, I certainly don’t need more money

- Larry Ellison

I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.

- Ray Dalio

After putting economics aside, I found that there were two primary reasons why people quit: They hated their manager; generally the employees were appalled by the lack of guidance, career development, and feedback they were receiving. They weren’t learning anything: The company wasn’t investing resources in helping employees develop new skills.

- Ben Horowitz

Xiaomi looks a bit like Apple but is really more like Amazon with some elements of Google.

- Lei Jun

Management will endeavour to actively encourage staff to broaden their experiences and job knowledge for extensive application in the process of improving the Group’s operational and competitive performance. Combined with our strengths in both entrepreneurial spirit and managerial professionalism, this would result in the creation of a leading edge honed in a relentless drive for operational excellence in the Group’s future pursuits.

- Cheng Yu-tung

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.

- Timothy Ferriss

Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.

- Ben Horowitz

If you want to understand what drives Cisco, look at our approach to customers. The manner in which we serve our customers defines our company values and demonstrates our priorities. Cisco is proud to be honored with this important certification that recognizes the foundation of our culture — the importance that we place on ensuring our customers are successful with Cisco technology.

- John Chambers

A lovely nook of forest scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of its attractiveness upon the attendance sense of freedom from whatever is low; upon a sense of purity and of romance.

- P.T. Barnum

If you’re going to have to swallow a frog, you don’t want to have to look at that sucker too long!

- Zig Ziglar

If your feet are in two buckets and the average temperature of the water is 90 degrees, you’re probably fine—unless one bucket is at 35 and the other is at 145 degrees. On average, you’re fine. Based on variation, though, you’re miserable.

- Seth Godin

In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

- Warren Buffett

Keep something in front of you Studies tell us that we move toward what we consistently see. You should keep something in front of you, even if it’s symbolic, to remind you of what you are believing for.

- Joel Olsteen

I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy — a little boy!

- Dale Carnegie

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.

- Henry Ford

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.

You can’t worry about the mistakes, because you’re going to make a lot of them. You’ve got to be thinking about your next move.

- Ben Horowitz

So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.

- Winston Churchill

Group projects are the exception in school, but they should be the norm.

- Seth Godin

A Prius is not a true hybrid, really. The current Prius is, like, 2 percent electric. It’s a gasoline car with slightly better mileage.

- Elon Musk

You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of your life. It’s easy.

- Dale Carnegie

Tell them to grab on to the career that engages their brain and heart and soul and gives them meaning. Tell them that eventually, the money will come, and if it doesn’t, in time, they will find themselves rich with something money can’t buy. And that, obviously, would be happiness.

- Jack Welch

We subpoenaed him for the SAP trial and he was on the lam. The HP board sent him to Bolivia to talk to customers. Then they sent him to Mongolia to talk to customers, just out of reach of the federal subpoenas … the board figured out [later]: we should have left Leo in Mongolia.

- Larry Ellison

Ohhh. Great warrior.Wars not make one great.

- Yoda

Those people blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.

- Mary Kay Ash

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

Digital reading will completely take over. It’s lightweight and it’s fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.

- Bill Gates

Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord do not hold this sin against them. When he said this, he fell asleep (he died).

- Acts 7:60

Most GE business leaders now have digital cockpits on their computer screens that update in real time all the important data to help them manager their businesses.

- Jack Welch

When sales people don’t know what to do, they talk. The ordinary salesperson vomits the presentation onto the Buyer’s desktop.

- Jerry Vass

When those in power use shame to bully the weak into compliance, they are stealing from us. They tell us that they will expose our secrets (not good enough, not hardworking enough, not from the right family, made a huge mistake once) and will use the truth to exile us from our tribe. This shame, the shame that lives deep within each of us, is used as a threat. And when those in power use it, they take away part of our humanity.

- Seth Godin

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

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

- Peter Drucker

Enforce functional training by withholding new employee requisitions. As Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training. Therefore, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in your organization. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they’ve developed a training program for the TBH, “To Be Hired.”

- Ben Horowitz

Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.

- Dale Carnegie

Applied Faith – Faith is a state of mind through which your aims, desires, plans and purposes may be translated into their physical or financial equivalent.

- Napoleon Hill

I guess Mr. Walton just had a personality that drew people in. He would yell at you from a block away, you know. He would just yell at everybody he saw, and that’s the reason so many liked him and did business in his store. It was like he brought in business by his being so friendly. (on role of managing partner)

- Inez Threet

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

- Zig Ziglar

To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.

- Henry Ford

This describes Americans today. In middle school, we’re encouraged to start hoarding “extracurricular activities.” In high school, ambitious students compete even harder to appear omnicompetent. By the time a student gets to college, he’s spent a decade curating a bewilderingly diverse résumé to prepare for a completely unknowable future. Come what may, he’s ready—for nothing in particular.

- Peter Thiel

The Curveball. This approach appeals to the media’s innate curiosity. Whereas a fastball stresses logic over emotion, the curveball stresses emotion over logic.

- Michael Levine

Madness is however an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of SURPRISE.

- Winston Churchill

It doesn’t matter how many people you offend, as long as you’re getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising.

- Phil Knight

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

They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

- Dale Carnegie

You always have to give something when you get something.

- Jack Nadel

Great bosses and world-class organizations hire motivated people, set high expectations, and give their people room to become remarkable.

- Seth Godin

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‘us versus them,’ it’s an ‘us and them’ type scenario.

- Bill Gates

You may think using Google’s great, but I still think it’s terrible.

- Larry Page

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

There will be no pissing on partners in the shower.

- Phil Knight

Berkshire’s record would have been terrible if Warren didn’t keep learning.

- Charlie Munger

Life is a classroom — only those who are willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class.

- Zig Ziglar

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city’s worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city’s Students Federation.

- Jack Ma

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

- Winston Churchill

First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

- Dale Carnegie

When you simplify… When you get down to the essence, you fix so many things.

- Jack Dorsey

No genuine leader is ever too busy to do anything which may be required of him in his capacity as leader. When a man, whether he is a leader of followers, admits he is too busy to change his plans, or to give attention to any emergency, he admits his inefficiency. The successful leader must be the master of all details connected with his position.

- Napoleon Hill

Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything.

- Ben Horowitz

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

- John C. Maxwell

The [Henderson] Group possesses substantial recurrent income.

- Lee Shau Kee

Every breakthrough business idea begins with solving a common problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. I discovered a big one when I took apart an IBM PC. I made two interesting discoveries: The components were all manufactured by other companies, and the system that retailed for $3,000 cost about $600 in parts.

- Michael Dell

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.

- Sam Walton

The employees who share innovative ideas may also be the folks who have some hidden talents that would help incorporate their suggestions.

- Harvey Mackay

We need to and must protect privacy. But I think that people will be willing and even eager to share medical information about themselves for the greater good of mankind.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

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

As much as I love crisp, clean whites, there’s always a time for rich but balanced Chardonnays with oak, especially at Thanksgiving.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Small businesses don’t exist without the nucleus.

- Bryan Smith

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.

- Timothy Ferriss

In my early teens, I knew I wanted to do television production. I loved cameras, editing and producing, anything that had to do with television production. My friend had a production studio across town, and we’d go over there at night and shoot and edit. I produced my father’s televised service for 17 years.

- Joel Olsteen

When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Now I am.

- Elon Musk

If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.

- Jack Welch

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can’t see it.

- Seth Godin

Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable. Avoidable failures are commmon and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields – from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That means we need a different strategy for overcoming failure, one that builds on experience and takes advantage of the knowledge people have but somehow also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies. And there is such a strategy – though it will seem almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy to those of us who have spent years carefully developing ever more advanced skills and technologies. It is a checklist.

- Atul Gawande

Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.

- Bill Gates

Do more than you are being paid to do, and you’ll eventually be paid more for what you do.

- Zig Ziglar

Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

- Yoda

Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.

- Peter Drucker

Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow.

- Seth Godin

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting

- Thomas Jefferson

Cherish your dreams as they are the children of your soul… –

- Napoleon Hill

A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company’s most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think.

- Peter Thiel

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

- Bill Gates

Friend, there’s no greater investment in life than in being a people builder. Relationships are more important than our accomplishments.

- Joel Olsteen

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