Notable Quotables

I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who might be trying to beat me to an invention…. Its their ‘ideas’ that appeal to me. I am quite correctly described as ‘more of a sponge than an inventor….’

- Thomas Edison

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

- Colin Powell

Our culture is friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove we’ll settle for intense.

- Jeff Bezos

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.

- John C. Maxwell

What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.

- John Chambers

To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it.

- Aliko Dangote

I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.

- Walt Disney

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,” said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.

- Dale Carnegie

Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

- Andrew Carnegie

It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.

- Robert Kiyosaki

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

- Napoleon Hill

I hate how many people think “glass half-empty” when their glass is really four-fifths full. I’m grateful when I have one drop in the glass because I know exactly what to do with it.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

I just think that trusting God means we’re going to have unanswered questions, and God is so much bigger than us, we’re never going to understand them all.

- Joel Olsteen

If a product’s future is unlikely to be remarkable – if you can’t imagine a future in which people are once again fascinated by your product – it’s time to realize that the game has changed. Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new.

- Seth Godin

Dell will participate in tablets and all sorts of client devices. Our main business is helping our customers secure, protect their data and access it from any device they want to.

- Michael Dell

It’s not how far you fall. But how high you bounce that counts.

- Zig Ziglar

I fell in love with flora of all types, especially ferns. Loved the sparse structure and repetition of shape – almost fractal.

- Jack Dorsey

I’ve known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn’t know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don’t know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination.

- Harvey Mackay

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.

- Og Mandino

We have to innovate for a specific reason, and that reason comes from the market. Otherwise, we’ll end up making museum pieces.

- Phil Knight

When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to feel that’s right,” or that’s stupid,” that’s abnormal,” that’s unreasonable,” that’s incorrect,” that’s not nice.” Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person.

- Dale Carnegie

Maybe I was born to be a merchant, maybe it was fate. I don’t know about that. But I know this for sure: I loved retail from the very beginning.

- Sam Walton

According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life.

- Bill Gates

You are going to fire Mark Hurd and hire Leo? What I said at the time was that this was the best idea since the Apple board fired Steve Jobs. Really brilliant.

- Larry Ellison

The only way to solve the problem of Boko Haram is to create jobs.

- Aliko Dangote

We have merely scratched the surface of the store of knowledge which will come to us. I believe that we are now, a-tremble on the verge of vast discoveries – discoveries so wondrously important they will upset the present trend of human thought and start it along completely new lines .

- Thomas Edison

It’s not always easy to get over some of those bumps in the road, those disillusionments and disappointments. It’s going to take a strong will. Sometimes, it may take courage. Sometimes nothing but faith in God and say, I refuse to be trapped in the past. I’m not going to let the past destroy my future. I’m pressing on. I’m straining forward, knowing that God has great things in store for me.

- Joel Olsteen

Look we gave this thing a good run. We both know it’s not working out. Let’s wrap this thing up.

- Jack Welch

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

- Peter Drucker

Well private money can take risks in a way that government money often isn’t willing to.

- Bill Gates

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.

- Robert Frost

Failure is a great teacher, and I have been its student on more than one occasion. – CEO David Novak of Yum! Brands

- David Novak

Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they’re not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.

- Bill Gates

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they’re not all growing in their faith, they’re not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior.

- Joel Olsteen

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

- Seth Godin

Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.

- Elon Musk

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

- Peter Drucker

The first thing I would do for anyone who’s trying to lose body fat, for instance, would be to remove foods from the house that he or she would consume during lapses of self-control.

- Timothy Ferriss

Since time is your most valuable asset, it’s odd to spend it working with people who don’t envision any long-term future together. If you can’t count durable relationships among the fruits of your time at work, you haven’t invested your time well—even in purely financial terms.

- 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

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers – organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative – if we don’t solve these security problems, then people will hold back.

- Bill Gates

The typical project design time for a large company like IBM – and they keep track of this – is a little over four years.

- Bill Gates

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios… The idea that you can actually predict what’s going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

- George Soros

If Google Books is successful, others will follow.

- Sergey Brin

Our history is based on extending the brand to categories within the guardrails of Starbucks.

- Howard Schultz

If you are starting a business I believe it has to be your passion.

- David Robinson

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.

- Winston Churchill

That’s what makes death so hard—unsatisfied curiosity. —BERYL MARKHAM, West with the Night1

- James C. Collins

Profitability comes from loyalty, productivity, and having a character base from which to work.

- Zig Ziglar

I feel like money makes you more of who you already are.

- Sara Blakely

Strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.

- Seth Godin

The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries.

- Elon Musk

When you write a program for Android, you use the Oracle Java tools for everything, and at the very end, you push a button and say, ‘Convert this to Android format.’

- Larry Ellison

I believe you should have a world where you’ve got to license something at a fair price. There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone. I wish Apple would use them and could use them, and I don’t know if Samsung would stop us.

- Steve Wozniak

STARTUP THINKING New technology tends to come from new ventures—startups. From the Founding Fathers in politics to the Royal Society in science to Fairchild Semiconductor’s “traitorous eight” in business, small groups of people bound together by a sense of mission have changed the world for the better. The easiest explanation for this is negative: it’s hard to develop new things in big organizations, and it’s even harder to do it by yourself. Bureaucratic hierarchies move slowly, and entrenched interests shy away from risk. 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. Positively defined, 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. This book is about the questions you must ask and answer to succeed in the business of doing new things: what follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.

- Peter Thiel

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt.

- Seth Godin

Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First he gets up everyday bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I’ve ever know. And once he sees he’s wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction. (qualities of great leaders)

- David Glass

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

The U.S. automotive industry has been selling cars the same way for over 100 years, and there are many laws in place to govern exactly how that is to be accomplished.

- Elon Musk

The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home. First time, every time. When there’s no ball, there’s no game. Bullies hate that. So they’ll either behave so they can play with you or they’ll go bully someone else.

- Seth Godin

I cut the feet out of my control top pantyhose one night, threw them on under my white pants and realized that the toning and shaping was perfect and that the hosiery material is thin enough that I could make shape wear out of it.

- Sara Blakely

In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

- Bill Gates

Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.

- Winston Churchill

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

Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.

- Napoleon Hill

Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new…If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot.The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.

- Seth Godin

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.

- Oprah Winfrey

Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work….

- Thomas Edison

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

- Dale Carnegie

I absolutely don’t have $20 billion. But I’d love to, right?

- Jack Ma

I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common: They all wanted validation…I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire.

- Oprah Winfrey

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

- John C. Maxwell

Crash diets don’t work.They don’t work for losing weight, they don’t work for making sales quota and they don’t work for getting and keeping a job.The reason they don’t work has nothing to do with what’s on the list of things to be done (or consumed). No, the reason they don’t work is that they don’t change habits, and habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.

- Seth Godin

Hong Kong is uniquely positioned as the best place to integrate with the fast-growing Pearl River Delta Region and to capitalize on the opening up of China’s economy and markets.

- Cheng Yu-tung

The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.

- Timothy Ferriss

The local property market remained volatile throughout the period under review due to negative developments occurring both in the local as well as overseas markets.

- Lee Shau Kee

I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I’m going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It’s the best way to make conventional coffee.

- Howard Schultz

Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.

- J. Gitomer

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

- John C. Maxwell

Many brilliant people believe that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains, ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.

- Peter Drucker

People have come to me over the years and said to me: ‘I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?’ I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it’s based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.

- Howard Schultz

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.

- Zig Ziglar

America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.

- Elon Musk

I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change.

- Gina Rinehart

[On the Swoosh] It was 1971 and Ford had spent $2 million getting a trademark. We didn’t have $2 million. So I went by the graphic arts department at Portland State

- Phil Knight

Excellence isn’t achieved without inspiration and perspiration. You’ve got to have both.

- George Foreman

Where I get my energy is: ‘How can I make it better?’

- Sara Blakely

Although we can’t predict the future, our orders for the first weeks of this quarter are in line with the expectations we discussed in our fourth quarter earnings call.

- John Chambers

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

- Joel Olsteen

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