For me, it’s a purity thing about the joke itself. It’s a test of a joke whether or not you do it completely clean and it works. If it does, then that’s a legitimate item you have there. For me, it’s nothing to do with finding those words offensive. It’s just not what I’m in search of. Do it clean, and you are really earning that laugh.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Notable Quotables
There is a kind of intolerant spirit now abroad which arises out of the growing power of party and other machinery — a spirit which resents individual opinion, which clamours for uniformity and political Test Acts.
- Winston Churchill
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
Don’t live worried, frustrated or upset because of what somebody did or what didn’t work out. Come back to a place of peace. It’s not going to work against you; it’s going to work for you.
- Joel Olsteen
Remain close to government and away from politics. It means deal more with the authorities. And less with individuals.
- Wang Jianlin
I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.
- Jerry Seinfeld
I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant that 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 attemps, repeated will complete my undertaking.
- Og Mandino
The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.
- Jack Welch
In 20 years from now we will all be able to click and watch TV.
- Reed Hastings
The first key factor, I believe, is unity. If a family is not united, how then can we unite our colleagues? If we don’t love our brothers or our family, how then can we go ahead to love our colleagues. So our tradition really is about the human factor and talents, and we are dependent on the human factor. Therefore we have this corporate slogan – The markets of the world can belong to our corporation, and so can the world’s foremost human talents; The markets of the world belongs to us, and so are the world’s vast resources of raw materials. Similarly, if we can gain access to it, then the world’s financial funding belongs to us as well. Therefore, of foremost importance is access to human talents. Of course, a slogan is only something that we speak of. Of greater importance, is to truly have access to human talents. Towards that purpose, we must first be united and possess love. Our family is very united. And for the sake of the company, we innovated – we introduced western-style (corporate) culture into our company 30 years ago.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
The techniques that worked so extraordinarily well when applied to sustaining technologies, however, clearly failed badly when applied to markets or applications that did not yet exist.
- Clayton M. Christensen
It used to be the case, like you’d switch jobs, and then maybe you wouldn’t keep in touch with all the people that you knew from that old job, just because it was too hard. But one of the things that Facebook does is it makes it really easy to just stay in touch with all these people.
- Mark Zuckerberg
When commercializing disruptive technologies, they found or developed new markets that valued the attributes of the disruptive products, rather than search for a technological breakthrough so that the disruptive product could compete as a sustaining technology in mainstream markets.
- Clayton M. Christensen
No man is ever whipped, until he quits in his own mind…A winner never quits and quitter never wins. No follower of this philosphy can reasonably expect accumulate a fortune without experience temporary defeat.
- Napoleon Hill
When I was in my 40s, Microsoft was my primary activity.
- Bill Gates
In Riyadh, there’s going to be a huge project that will house at least 12,000 units with inhabitants of approximately 150,000 people. It’s like a city within a city.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business.
- Reed Hastings
People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you’re going to lose. You’re just going to. Even if you get the money, you’re not going to be happy.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.
- Thomas Edison
The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.
- Thomas Edison
Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.
- Winston Churchill
I think how you start the day many times determines what kind of day you’re going to have.
- Joel Olsteen
If the terrorists have the sympathy of people, it’s much harder to find them. So we need people on our side, and that leads us to be responsible leaders of the world, show some concern with the problems.
- George Soros
If you’re in business, first and foremost, you have to be nice. Show your customers that you care.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
- David Ogilvy
Amazon.com strives to be the e-commerce destination where consumers can find and discover anything they want to buy online.
- Jeff Bezos
I’m on the Facebook board now. Little did they know that I thought Facebook was really stupid when I first heard about it back in 2005.
- Reed Hastings
Remember: There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want.
- Timothy Ferriss
My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point – because of the injury, he couldn’t walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food.
- Howard Schultz
Talent is God-given, be humble. Fame is man-given, be thankful. Conceit is self-given, be careful.
- Harvey Mackay
To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.
- Henry Ford
Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison
If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.
- Elon Musk
[On the first twitter tweet] The first tweet that was actually written by a human was by me and it was inviting co-workers.
- Jack Dorsey
Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.
- Joel Olsteen
Only the paranoid survive.
- Andrew Grove
your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse 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.
- Dale Carnegie
My wheels are running. My investments are local, regional and international.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Success is best when it’s shared.
- Howard Schultz
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
You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
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
It is definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. In the absence of that, I don’t think it’s possible to make an electric car that is competitive with a gasoline car.
- Elon Musk
I was not naturally talented. I didn’t sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
- Steve Martin
Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.
- Fujio Mitarai
I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Property prices depend mainly on the supply and demand of a particular point in time, in much the same way as the price for a commodity is fixed.
- Lee Shau Kee
If you find yourself plagued by a recurrent worry, train yourself to think of something else. Your conscious mind can concentrate on only one thought at a time, and driving the negativity away will free you up to move forward again.
- Harvey Mackay
My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.
- Jeff Bezos
The [Henderson] Group possesses substantial recurrent income.
- Lee Shau Kee
The Group’s performance will continue to improve in future upon return of the local economy on an upward recovery track.
- Lee Shau Kee
Success is not measured by what you do compared to what others do, it is measured by what you do with the ability God gave you.
- Zig Ziglar
When we don’t forgive, we’re not hurting the other person. We’re not hurting the company that did us wrong. We’re not hurting God. We’re only hurting ourselves.
- Joel Olsteen
The Mastermind principle consists of an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a common definite objective. Success does not come without the cooperation of others.
- Napoleon Hill
In fact, stories only magnify the need to have something remarkable (and honest) to say.
- Seth Godin
Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.
- Napoleon Hill
Certainly, we continue to bring in new people. We’ll hire, net new, over 4,000 people this year, and attract great people into the company. I’m very bullish about the employee base and what it can accomplish.
- Steve Ballmer
Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.
- Bill Gates
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin
Stock ownership changes behavior.
- Jack Welch
One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
- Winston Churchill
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.
- Zig Ziglar
Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.
- Zig Ziglar
A good startup should have the potential for great scale built into its first design.
- Peter Thiel
If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
- Timothy Ferriss
In boxing, you get hit, it’s painful, then you sit on the stool when the adrenaline is gone and you feel that pain. And then you fight the next round.
- Ben Horowitz
Indecision is the seedling of fear.
- Napoleon Hill
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
- Winston Churchill
There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
- Jerry Seinfeld
From a global CEO and government leader perspective, we remain in a `show- me’ economy.
- John Chambers
It’s [the internet] like the flu – it just spreads like crazy.
- Jack Welch
Potential means that you haven’t done it yet.
- David Novak
You can’t be in neutral and hope to reach your full potential.
- Joel Olsteen
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
- Winston Churchill
Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It’s something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.
- Steve Martin
This is why so many small and medium-sized businesses don’t use tools that bigger firms take for granted. It’s not that small business proprietors are unusually backward or that good tools don’t exist: distribution is the hidden bottleneck.
- Peter Thiel
Fear is one of the worst things in business.
- Jack Nadel
In return, society rewards those who give it what it wants. That is why how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted.
- Ray Dalio
The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. Also, if you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.
- Jack Ma
You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.
- Steve Martin
Given how few young people actually read the newspaper, it’s a good thing they’ll be reading a newspaper on a screen.
- Bill Gates
If your watch is slow by just four minutes, that’s not much – unless you’ve been warned that if you’re even one minute late ever again you will be fired. Then four minutes make a big difference.
- Zig Ziglar
Pull in your belt, spend less, and reduce debt.
- Ray Dalio
Always deliver more than expected.
- Larry Page
Never surrender opportunity for security.
- Branch Rickey
One of my lifelong practices is to pay my obligations on time, especially my suppliers. Even in my early years as retailer, I didn’t delay my payments to suppliers, because I tell my kids that we have to be considerate to suppliers and think of their own hinyong or how they have to protect their sense of trustworthiness with others.
- Henry Sy
1. Make incremental advances Grand visions inflated the bubble, so they should not be indulged. Anyone who claims to be able to do something great is suspect, and anyone who wants to change the world should be more humble. Small, incremental steps are the only safe path forward.2. Stay lean and flexible All companies must be “lean,” which is code for “unplanned.” You should not know what your business will do; planning is arrogant and inflexible. Instead you should try things out, “iterate,” and treat entrepreneurship as agnostic experimentation.3. Improve on the competition Don’t try to create a new market prematurely. The only way to know you have a real business is to start with an already existing customer, so you should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.4. Focus on product, not sales If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough: technology is primarily about product development, not distribution. Bubble-era advertising was obviously wasteful, so the only sustainable growth is viral growth.
- Peter Thiel
Never fear to negotiate, but never negotiate out of fear.
- Jack Nadel
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
- Oprah Winfrey
Success is about being where we are supposed to be and doing what we need to be doing.
- David Robinson
The kids are a big part of my schedule.
- Bill Gates
The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.
- Jerry Seinfeld
[In January 2011] There are so many features Twitter could build. There’s so many features that Square can build. But there is only one or two going to bring us to the next level.
- Jack Dorsey
Stop selling. Start helping.
- Zig Ziglar
When you are tempted to get discouraged, remind yourself that according to God’s word, your future is getting brighter; you are on your way to a new level of glory. You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.
- Joel Olsteen
Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls. If you want to be great, this is the challenge. If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company.
- Ben Horowitz
I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.
- Elon Musk
You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve.
- Howard Schultz
If that doesn’t seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word “google” is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary—as a verb.
- Peter Thiel
I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else.
- Seth Godin
