Notable Quotables

[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

Most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more.

- Peter Thiel

Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—twelve hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work a total of about twenty thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a 1 percent improvement in your subordinates’ performance, your company will gain the equivalent of two hundred hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your twelve hours.

- Ben Horowitz

It’s paradoxical, but you want to identify the things that can kill you and engage them sooner. This is part of the metric behind fail fast. Of course, you’re not actually trying to fail; you want to succeed. But failing fast is much better than failing slowly, since it enables you to quickly to pivot, iterate, and redeploy capital. The one key mistake is that people tend to work first on the problems that they have the most confidence they can solve. In a good startup strategy you actually want to face death soonest because then you fail fast or get on a great path to success fast. Identify the hardest problems and try to solve those as soon as you can.

- Reid Hoffman

Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.

- Og Mandino

God accepts you. God approves you. And He has something better in store.

- Joel Olsteen

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

- Steve Jobs

For many of us, the happiest future is one that’s precisely like the past, except a little better.

- Seth Godin

You’d believe that a patient with hypertension, if you know you have hypertension or diabetes, you would take your drug every day. The compliance rate is more like 30% or 40%. Which means that 60% of patients don’t take their drugs, and they actually go into these crises, end up in the hospital.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

- Thomas Edison

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

We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.

- Henry Ford

I hate writing about personal stuff. I don’t have a Facebook page. I don’t use my Twitter account. I am familiar with both, but I don’t use them.

- Elon Musk

I’m not averse to making a lot of money. But where does that end? I hang out with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that the standard by which I should measure myself? Where does that take you if you’re in my business? I think it takes you to pretty dark, corrupt places.

- Timothy Ferriss

Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.

- Richard Branson

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

- Harvey Mackay

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

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.

- Thomas Edison

People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?

- Seth Godin

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that’s one of the things that he’s going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

- Michael Bloomberg

After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.

- Vladimir Potanin

I think everything I have done in my life, my reasons at the time were right no matter how things worked out.

- Steve Wozniak

Stop doing things that waste time. Don’t replace time with your family or things that you need to do. I needed to put together two fantasy teams this weekend because that’s something I enjoy, but I did stop playing Nintendo Wii for hours on end.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Facebook is quite entrenched and has a network effect. It’s hard to break into a network once it’s formed.

- Elon Musk

Ask yourself, what’s the one thing that I can do right now so I’m on track to achieve my someday goals?

- Gary Keller

In War: Resolution,In Defeat: Defiance,In Victory: MagnaminityIn Peace: Good Will.

- Winston Churchill

It’s not going out to people who aren’t going to go shopping. You’ve already got the people who are shopping.

- Jack Taylor

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.

- Bill Gates

The Benefits are about the Buyer’s stuff – what your products or services do for Buyers. Do the Benefits make them feel better about life – give them power; make them sexier, prettier, richer, more comfortable or secure, smarter, more competitive? Do they save time, money, fear or hassle?

- Jerry Vass

Cupcakes The first time you bake cupcakes, you will certainly follow the recipe with rigor. The third time, you might improvise and screw up. Learning your lesson, you will follow the recipe again and again as closely as you can. At this point, by the fifth time, some people actually learn to bake. They improvise successfully. They understand the science and the outcomes. They develop a kind of gracefulness in the kitchen. Others merely plod along. They’re cooks, not chefs. A cook follows a recipe. A chef invents one. We have too many cooks. The world is begging for chefs.

- Seth Godin

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.

- Jack Canfield

I learned that a long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.

- Seth Godin

I hope you will take good care of your health, this is religious duty, and you can accomplish so much for the world if you keep well and strong.

- John D. Rockefeller

I have a nice office. I have a nice house… So I’m not denying myself some great things. I just don’t happen to have expensive hobbies.

- Bill Gates

I want the entire smartphone, the entire Internet, on my wrist.

- Steve Wozniak

Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle and a victory.

- Mahatma Gandhi

I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander.

- Howard Schultz

If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.

- Richard Branson

If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to ‘be different’.

- Larry Ellison

Bloodshed, gentlemen, no doubt is lamentable. I have seen some of it–more perhaps than many of those who talk about it with such levity. But there are worse things than bloodshed, even on an extreme scale. . . . The trampling down of law and order which, under the conditions of a civilised state, assure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–all this would be worse than bloodshed.

- Winston Churchill

The story about GE that hasn’t been told is the value of an informal place. I think it’s a big thought. I don’t think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.

- Jack Welch

You want your customers to value your service.

- Jeff Bezos

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

- Thomas Edison

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

- Sam Walton

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

As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world.

- Rupert Murdoch

We wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company. Once you say that, you have a focus. You don’t end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.

- Phil Knight

A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.

- Andrew Carnegie

Since belief determines behavior, doesn’t it make sense that we should be teaching ethical, moral values in every home and in every school in America?

- Zig Ziglar

Even though I get older, what I do never gets old, and that’s what I think keeps me hungry.

- Warren Buffett

Over the past ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.

- Ben Horowitz

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

I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It’s seeing what other people don’t see And pursuing that vision.

- Howard Schultz

Even if producing CO2 was good for the environment, given that we’re going to run out of hydrocarbons, we need to find some sustainable means of operating.

- Elon Musk

You may have made a lot of wrong choices, but you’ve also made a lot of choices that were right. Focus on your good qualities. Focus on your victories. Get off the treadmill of guilt.

- Joel Olsteen

I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.

- Steve Martin

I had been trained by him. I knew him. I loved him. I simply never took it personally. If I had anything to say about it, he was not going to leave.

- Phil Knight

And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

- Romans 8:28

Our minds become magnetized with the dominating thoughts we hold in our minds and these magnets attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.

- Napoleon Hill

I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.

- John Wanamaker

Market the change; be bold. Remember don’t be a bad ad, be a good one.

- David Novak

You spend so much time in the world of virtual that the actual – which nothing is more actual than stand-up – it’s a painful experience for the audience, and the comedian a lot of time – we miss that.

- Jerry Seinfeld

I’ve always wanted to be a businessman. No other ambitions, I just wanted to be in business, even when I was a child in Fujian province, south China.

- Henry Sy

Look at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. They have all entered many sectors, and actually, in many of those sectors, they weren’t as early as Tencent.

- Ma Huateng

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

- Walt Disney

The Minden prospect originated this past summer through a large acreage acquisition from a major oil company and Cabot now controls 3,500 acres over the area. We are pleased with our initial results and will remain active in this area throughout 2006. On forty-acre spacing, the prospect has the potential for 80 plus locations.

- Dan Dinges

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one.

- Winston Churchill

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

- Peter Drucker

The pent-up demand for the good life in China is extraordinary.

- Stephen Wynn

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

Yes, I think it’s okay to abandon the big, established, stuck tribe. It’s okay to say to them, “You’re not going where I need to go, and there’s no way I’m going to persuade all of you to follow me. So rather than standing here watching the opportunities fade away, I’m heading off. I’m betting some of you, the best of you, will follow me.

- Seth Godin

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

- Henry Ford

Of course, it’s easier to copy a model than to make something new. Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.

- Peter Thiel

Even leaders with the best of intentions can have dumb ideas sometimes, and if you have good people around you, then hopefully they’ll stop you before you’ve done too much damage.

- David Novak

I think there will be 20 years of evolution from linear broadcast to internet television.

- Reed Hastings

When Sam feels a certain way, he is relentless. He will just wear you out. He will bring up an idea, and we’ll discuss it and then decide maybe that it’s not something we should be doing right now or ever. Fine. Case closed. But as long as he is convinced that it is the right thing, it just keep coming up week after week – until finally everybody capitulates and says, well it’s easier to do it than to keep fighting this fight. I guess it could be called management by wearing you down.

- David Glass

I’d always try to remind managers at every level that they had to share my passion for developing people.

- Jack Welch

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn’t mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It’s about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

- Steve Martin

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

- Sun Tzu

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