Notable Quotables

But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict. Most fights inside a company happen when colleagues compete for the same responsibilities. Startups face an especially high risk of this since job roles are fluid at the early stages. Eliminating competition makes it easier for everyone to build the kinds of long-term relationships that transcend mere professionalism. More than that, internal peace is what enables a startup to survive at all. When a startup fails, we often imagine it succumbing to predatory rivals in a competitive ecosystem. But every company is also its own ecosystem, and factional strife makes it vulnerable to outside threats. Internal conflict is like an autoimmune disease: the technical cause of death may be pneumonia, but the real cause remains hidden from plain view.

- Peter Thiel

Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

- Dale Carnegie

The reason you might choose to embrace the artist within you now is that this is the path to (cue the ironic music) security.

- Seth Godin

The most impressive person I’ve ever met? Elaine Wynn is no slouch. She’s a much better person than me. But I’ve got her. Finders keepers, losers weepers. And it’s been forty-seven years.

- Stephen Wynn

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

- Winston Churchill

The purpose of process is communication. If there are five people in your company, you don’t need process, because you can just talk to each other.

- Ben Horowitz

Teaching Fire a LessonFire is hot. That’s what it does. If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at fire doesn’t do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson so it won’t be hot next time is certainly not time well spent.Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it’s not human. But human beings are similar, in that they’re not going to change any time soon either.

- Seth Godin

If you complain you will remain, if you praise you will be raised.

- Joel Olsteen

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

Customers won’t care about any particular technology unless it solves a particular problem in a superior way. And if you can’t monopolize a unique solution for a small market, you’ll be stuck with vicious competition.

- Peter Thiel

In the middle of that process four power plants just tripped off all at once in unison.

- Ed Clark

I can’t read a computer screen and never use a calculator. It’s all in my head and by hand.

- Simon Reuben

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them…let them be your friends.

- Winston Churchill

If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

- James C. Collins

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

- Napoleon Hill

Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you’ve given it, don’t concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying ‘I told you so.’

- Harvey Mackay

The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only to speak and I will see that you get it.

- Dale Carnegie

I’m afraid Japanese people tend to collective hysteria.

- Tadashi Yanai

Social media is a giant distraction to the ultimate aim, which is honing your craft as a songwriter. There are people who are exceptional at it, however, and if you can do both things, then that’s fantastic, but if you are a writer, the time is better spent on a clever lyric than a clever tweet.

- Bryan Adams

My God, these guys don’t even know what the return-on-investment will be on this thing.

- James C. Collins

If you are going to be successful, you must develop persistence. How do you do that? It is not easily condensed in one simple statement, but one thing you can be sure of is that your must define your purpose.

- Zig Ziglar

My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had — everyday I’m learning something new.

- Richard Branson

In order to build a great technology company, you have to hire lots of incredibly smart people. It’s a total waste to have lots of big brains but not let them work on your biggest problems. A brain, no matter how big, cannot solve a problem it doesn’t know about.

- Ben Horowitz

Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.

- Sergey Brin

Starbucks has stores in America in many, many communities that are governed by many, many different municipalities. Starbucks cannot dictate to a municipality in Cincinnati or Kansas City or Sacramento how or why or when there should be a recycling program.

- Howard Schultz

The maxim, “Nothing prevails but perfection,” may be spelled PARALYSIS.

- Winston Churchill

That’s just $30 for two tickets. Racing is a family sport and we strive to make our tickets affordable for any families that want to come watch a race.

- Ed Clark

We’ve only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?

- Jack Welch

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

- Joel Olsteen

The slowdown in futures orders clearly signals that revenue growth in the second half of fiscal 1998 will be below our previous expectations. This is largely a result of the slowdown in the Asia Pacific market, where we now anticipate more moderate revenue growth in fiscal 1998 after increasing 84 percent on a constant dollar basis in fiscal 1997.

- Phil Knight

Google’s motto—“Don’t be evil”—is in part a branding ploy, but it’s also characteristic of a kind of business that’s successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.

- Peter Thiel

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.

- Sam Walton

Winners expect to win, they expect victory, and they expect success!

- Zig Ziglar

Rockefeller never clarified why he dropped out of high school around May 1855, just 2 months shy of commencement, excercises on July 16…

- Ron Chernow

My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

- Elon Musk

You don’t ever want to sell, you want customers to sell.

- Clay Clark

Ultimately, 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

Our road to success has included its shares of ups and downs, as we have had to cope with the often volatile nature of our chosen fields of specialisation. Yet, thanks to the strong foundations established by the dedication and hard work of our employees, we have always been able to weather the storms.

- Cheng Yu-tung

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

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.

- Oscar Wilde

I swore I would never get involved in another startup ever again in my entire life.

- Larry Ellison

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.

- Yoda

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.

- Bill Gates

We hold nearly 20 percent of our household’s wealth in transaction securities such as publicly traded stocks and mutual funds. But we rarely sell our equity investments. We hold even more in our pension plans. On average, 21 percent of our household’s wealth is in our private businesses.

- Thomas J Stanley

The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure, but to build one that is worthy of enduring.

- Jim Collins

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

- Winston Churchill

I think there’s a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they’re not sufficient because markets don’t look after social needs.

- George Soros

Democracy is more vindictive than cabinets, the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.

- Winston Churchill

President Obama is riding the wrong horse on energy.

- Harold Hamm

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

- James C. Collins

Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done. That would be you.

- Seth Godin

I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business, basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.

- Jack Welch

One of the most distinguished psychiatrists living, Dr. Carl Jung, says in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul (*): During the past thirty years, people from all the civilised countries of the earth have consulted me. I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among all my patients in the second half of life-that is to say, over thirty-five-there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

- Dale Carnegie

The Chinese people have always been determined to forge ahead.

- Cheng Yu-tung

When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.

- John C. Maxwell

If you talk about Cabernet and Merlot-based value between $10 and $25, I will tell you that Bordeaux is the best value in the world.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Facebook is uniquely positioned to answer questions that people have, like, what sushi restaurants have my friends gone to in New York lately and liked? These are queries you could potentially do with Facebook that you couldn’t do with anything else, we just have to do it.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

- Dale Carnegie

Think of the transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Within each of these three stages, there are two key concepts, shown in the framework and described below. Wrapping around this entire framework is a concept we came to call the flywheel, which captures the gestalt of the entire process of going from good to great.

- James C. Collins

What did I do that was right—and in what way could I have improved my performance? What lessons can I learn from that experience?

- Dale Carnegie

I believe that the science of chemistry alone almost proves the existence of an intelligent creator.

- Thomas Edison

No tienes que responder a cada crítica. No tienes que demostrarle nada a nadie. Tan solo permanece por encima y permite que Dios pelee tus batallas por ti.

- Joel Olsteen

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

- Jeff Bezos

There are a thousand excuses for failure, but never a good reason.

- Mark Twain

An optimist understands that life can be a bumpy road, but at least it is leading somewhere. They learn from mistakes and failures, and are not afraid to fail again.

- Harvey Mackay

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

- Dale Carnegie

Happens to every guy sometimes this does.

- Yoda

The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.

- George Soros

You may be at a crossroads in your life. You may have issues to deal with; people you need to forgive. You can go one of the two ways. You can ignore what you now know to be true and keep burying that bitterness in your life, pushing it deeper and allowing it to poison and contaminate you and those around you. Or you can make a much better choice by getting it out in the open and asking God to help you to totally forgive and let it all go.

- Joel Olsteen

For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.

- James C. Collins

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

- Zig Ziglar

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

- Warren Buffett

When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.

- John C. Maxwell

I’m a little unusual: I’m a six-person-or-less extrovert.

- Reid Hoffman

The third way is less common and certainly less of a layup—a culture of integrity, meaning a culture of honesty, transparency, fairness, and strict adherence to rules and regulations. In such cultures, there can be no head fakes or winks. People who break the rules do not leave the company for “personal reasons” or to “spend more time with their families.” They are hanged—publicly—and the reasons are made painfully clear to everyone.

- Jack Welch

I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results.

- Dale Carnegie

I think that the economics of book publishing favor hits with long book runs. You make all your money on the last bunch of books, not the first.

- Seth Godin

I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It’s the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.

- Elon Musk

You don’t have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don’t have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible.

- Jack Dorsey

Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence – more plow horse than show horse.

- James C. Collins

It seems like a good cause. I’ve been watching it on TV and, it makes me want to help.

- Ed Clark

You may think you’re getting the short end of the stick, but when it’s all said and done, God will make sure that you don’t lose anything truly valuable. Moreover, He’ll make sure you get your just reward. Your responsibility is to remain calm and peaceable even when those around you are not.

- Joel Olsteen

I think when companies are struggling, they don’t want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren’t interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it’s like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That’s slanted the whole thing quite a bit.

- Ben Horowitz

I get energy from one-on-one conversations most often, and I lose energy from group conversations most often.

- Reid Hoffman

If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that’s not going to promote healthiness.

- Larry Page

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